Edward Teller's Leg

for Lois and Cliff Schroeder

                                                  the tinkling sky

chandeliered with neurons. All the night before,

we had nosed past Piraeus, then through the cyclopean

slice of the Corinth Canal. Teller tattooed the deck

above us. Morning, he wouldn’t show his notepad,

its glimpsed black tangles, said it would take only

a few bombs to widen the channel. Where

would the people go? Lois asked.

                                                 We’d move them

for a few days, he said. They could have

a holiday. Please watch Edward, she would say,

his wife with the lovely name I always

have to look up, a crease you could tell was

already permanent between her brows.

We sat near the rail and watched Edward levitate

in the transparent water, a maimed starfish,

So much gone—what we ate, how we made love

in those narrow bunks. But Teller remains, out

on the bow of the Cavafy—no, that can’t be right—,

out on the bow of the Whatever, watching

the moon drop away toward Stavros, knowing

we drop, too, though just enough to maintain

our arc over the earth, falling and not falling,

falling and not falling at all.